Divorce Ceremonies

When you plan a wedding, you might select the specific readings or poems to commemorate your love at the ceremony. You’ll invite friends and family to witness the event, sanctify the union and celebrate your commitment. There might even be a wedding planner to get all the details in place.

Divorce ceremonies typically begin with friends and family traveling together in a procession to the mansion. Though some choose to dress up (one woman even wore her wedding gown), most divorce ceremonies are somewhat less formal. The unhappy couple marks the end of their marriage by bringing a frog’s head gavel down on their rings. After they’ve banged the circlets, most parties head to a local restaurant, where the former bride and groom sit at separate tables and entertain their guests.

As Rebecca Mead so eloquently wrote in her 2007 book, One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, the desire for a big party seems to have eclipsed the significance and sacrament of marriage. (The idea that a wedding is a day, but marriage is for a lifetime is probably not one of the aphorisms mentioned at divorce ceremonies.) Does the anticipation of a big party make people feel better about-or even encourage them to-divorce?

But I just have one question: Are the guests who come to divorce ceremonies expected to bring gifts-or do they get their money back from the wedding gifts that they gave the couple a few years earlier?

Dr. Christine B. Whelan is an author, professor and speaker. She and her husband, Peter, and their dictator cats, Chairman Meow and Evita Purron, live in Pittsburgh. Her book "Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women" is available in stores or at the Halo Store.